Dignity and Grace
by vapourtrailreads
Summary: Newt and Theseus return to Pere Lachaise. Written for QLFC Round 8


A/N:

this is hella short sorry

Thanks go to Di.

Title from Let Me Down Slowly by Alec Benjamin. I hecking love that song okay

**Dignity and Grace**

People were whispering, pointing, gossiping as he walked, his battered brown shoes making shallow prints in the snow coating Père Lachaise cemetery. More than one person shot him a look of disgust—of course they would scorn at the thought of a lowly blood traitor attending the funeral of a pure-blood. One belonging to a family of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, no less. Others were looking at him in surprise and, more often than not, recognition—a phrase rattled around in his head, something someone had said to him once when times were less grim. What was it?

Oh, right. _Price of fame, pal._

All he had wanted to do when he published his book was to share the world of creatures with everyone else, the wondrous bubble that for some reason only he was able to peek into. He certainly hadn't wanted any of the unwelcome attention and scrutiny of the media that now dogged him at all times. He'd never been made for the spotlight—he had always known that his talents lay elsewhere.

Of course, some might just dismiss it as insecurity or low self-esteem. Newt shivered from the cold, tugging the collar of his coat up and repositioning his scarf in an attempt to ward off the winter chill.

Beside him, Theseus was a stoic effigy of grief. His eyes were bloodshot, worn out from the futile stress of hunting Grindelwald, and from the still-fresh pain of losing _her_. The procession made its way through the outer ring of the cemetery, as soundless and emotionless as deep night.

"I didn't even get to say goodbye," his brother had whispered, back when the Fiendfyre had only just died down and the blood troth had been safely locked in Newt's case, still bearing a fine sheen of ash.

Theseus had gritted his teeth then, his lips pressed into a trembling line, and Newt knew that he was trying not to cry again, that he was trying to be strong, as was expected of the Head of the Auror Office, because Aurors weren't emotional or vulnerable in the face of tragedy or loss. They were stone-hard, ice-cold, like concrete, reliable mountains to fall back on when the world descended into hellfire.

But as Newt held his brother tight, surrounded by the smoking stone walls of Père Lachaise, everything around them singed by fire and Grindelwald's fury, he'd known that everything people said about Aurors was wrong.

Concrete was breakable too, after all.

Afterwards, when Theseus had come into Newt's apartment, refusing to do anything other than repeatedly lament his failure and what he could have done instead, what he could have done better, Newt forced himself to be strong again for his brother.

He knew Leta had struggled with self-loathing as well. He'd seen the other girls tormenting her, calling her names and, after Dumbledore's Defence lesson on the Boggart, teasing her and endlessly pelting her with her fear of what they thought was a plain white blanket. Newt had known that kind of ostracism himself. It was what had brought them together, after all.

He'd seen the look on her face as the blue flames consumed her, licking around her magenta robes with hungry rage. Resignation, regret, and above all, steel. She'd known what was going to happen, what she was meant to do. In that moment, he saw that she'd finally moved on from her self-doubt, from the insecurities forced on her by circumstance and cruelty.

And now she was never coming back.

Sometimes the blue-gray of melancholy draped itself over everything, slowing everything to a Flobberworm's crawl and paralysing them both further than was possible. Sometimes, it was red-gold anger that visited him, anger that she had let Theseus fall this way, hard onto the concrete of regret and grief. And sometimes it was simply thick, blank numbness, muffling everything around him, like miles of cold winter snow extending in all directions. Like the snow that was now falling softly over Paris, a feeble, apologetic comfort sent from the heavens.

The mass of muttering wizards filed through the archway of the Lestrange mausoleum. Newt glanced up at the raven that sat perched above it, a memory floating back to him. A memory of another place, another time, when the world still held wonder, hidden cleverly among the bleak exclusion that they had been sentenced to.

Somehow, it was even colder inside the tomb than it was out in the winter air. Honestly, it surprised Newt that so many pure-bloods had deigned to attend the funeral—memorial, really, since there was nothing left to bury or cremate. He wondered what Leta would think of all these people who had come out of duty, not out of love.

He heard another person whisper in French, the ice of their gaze a freezing pinprick on the back of his neck, and he shivered, ducking his head like he always did.

"Don't listen to them."

He looked up at Theseus. The redness had gone from his eyes, and a mask had slammed down over his face, cold and unmovable as concrete.

"They don't know anything about you." Theseus's voice was flat. "They don't know how much you're worth. What matters is that you do."

There was a look in his eyes, like he was thinking about something else. Someone else.

The mourners rounded the corner, entering the room where Leta's fear had come to life for the last time. Newt bowed his head as the smooth memorial slab lifted through the air and slid into the slot that had been carved out by the masons of old.

There was no stinging, witty epitaph on it like she would have wanted, no date of birth or death, nothing more than a name and the beginning and what he was still struggling to believe was the end.

_Leta Lestrange_

_1896-1927_

Newt stepped forward when it was his turn and traced the etched name with cold fingers.

He would have to be strong for Theseus now. The role that he had refused to play, he now had to step up to. There was no space, no time for doubting himself anymore.

Winter was here, and he had to bring it to an end, whatever it took. For the sake of the ones who would never see spring again, for the ones who could only watch from the cold concrete where they rested.

Newt turned on his heel, the stares of the pure-bloods fading away as he and Theseus took their leave, ready to face the winter cold outside.

_**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**_

Team: Appleby Arrows

CHASER 1: **Strength—Reversed: Self-Doubt, Weakness, Insecurity**

OPTIONAL PROMPTS:

#6: [word] Concrete

#8: [song] Let Me Down Slowly - Alec Benjamin

#9: [season] winter

Word Count: 1090


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